


Madness & Mischief

by mountain_born



Series: The Marvelous Tale of an Agent, an Archer, and an Assassin [25]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Doctor Who/Avengers Crossover Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3729775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_born/pseuds/mountain_born
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor was quite fond of both of the young princes of Asgard.  But if he were pressed, he would admit that Loki was his favorite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madness & Mischief

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks and kudos once again to my beta, **like-a-raven** who is betaing with a horrible cold at the end of a crazy week. Also, a great big internet shout-out of "Congratulations!" to her on her awesome new job!
> 
> This is a bit of a flashbacky short story centering on the Doctor and a certain young Asgardian prince.
> 
> Happy reading!

_Date: May 2011_   
_Location: New Mexico_

“You knew Loki, didn’t you?” Agent Coulson asked.

The Doctor had been deep in concentration, shredding his piece of cake into crumbs and squashing it into the colorful frosting. He was in little mood to talk about how things had gone on Asgard. He’d been happy to let Amy and Rory tell the SHIELD agents what they needed to know so that they could neatly file the information away and consider themselves safe from the All Father’s second son.

Amy referred to this as a “broody mood.” The Doctor preferred to think of it as “reflective.” Either way, apparently it hadn’t passed unnoticed. Coulson had whipped out his emotional thermometer.

“You said you knew him and Thor both when they were kids,” Coulson said.

_Say ahh. Stick out your tongue. Are you up on your shots?_ The Doctor nodded. “I did.” 

Coulson might be concerned about the Doctor’s newfound ability to keep from running on at the mouth, but the agent was clearly also curious.

“What was he like?” Coulson asked.

An old memory drifted to the forefront of the Doctor’s mind, that of a boy with dark hair and clever eyes and mischief in his smile. Mischief, but never any malice.

“He was a nice boy,” the Doctor said. “A long time ago.”

*****

_Date: Immaterial_  
 _Location: Asgard_

Most of the time, during the Doctor’s travels, his visits were short, one-time affairs. Nip in, nip out, occasionally save the day along the way. He didn’t often visit the same place twice. There was too much in the universe to see. _Always keep moving,_ that was his motto. 

But there were places where he liked to occasionally linger, and places that he liked to come back to. Earth was one of those places. Asgard was another.

Asgard. A world spread across cosmic archipelago, a large sweep of dense, flattened asteroids that hung suspended over the Great Void. That life flourished on their surfaces was partly a quirk of nature and partly due to some ancient and ingenious engineering. This was an old world, and the Asgardians were an old people. Not as old as the Time Lords, but close. 

“It reminds you of home, does it not?” Frigga, Queen of Asgard said, coming to join the Doctor at the balcony railing.

He had been staring out over the city, at the grand towers and spires of metal and stone and glass. From this point, high up in the All-Father’s palace, he could see the Bifrost stretching out to the island in the harbor where good old Heimdall stood watch in his Observatory. 

“In the good ways,” the Doctor replied, smiling faintly at the Queen’s ever-apt perception. 

The Doctor always preferred to remember what was best about Gallifrey, its beauty and power and ingenuity, even if that was an incomplete and inaccurate picture.

“Things change slowly on Asgard,” the Doctor added. “Gallifrey was like that, too. Earth, on the other hand, moves along quickly. It can look like a completely new planet from one decade to the next. The blink of an eye. It’s exciting, but. . .different.”

“You spend a great deal of time there,” Frigga said. “What is the draw of Midgard? I’ve always been rather curious.”

“The people, mostly,” the Doctor said. “Football is fun. Fish and chips? Delicious. Wham! is sheer musical genius. But mostly it’s the people.”

“I always thought Midgardians were supposed to be rather backward.”

The Doctor chuckled a bit. “No, not backward, not most of them. Just young. Asgard is great. My people? Well, we outlived our greatness. Humanity is still on the rise. Their greatness is still to come, and they are capable of so, so much.”

“You make them sound quite intriguing.” Frigga smiled. “I’m sorry now that we didn’t get to meet your companions. What are their names again?”

“Amy and Rory,” the Doctor said. “I would have brought them along, but they had some humany things that they needed to see to back on Earth for a bit. Someone’s birthday. Rory’s dad, maybe.”

Domestic things. The Doctor didn’t usually mean to tune out the details. It just sort of happened.

“Well, we’re happy to have you in the meantime,” Frigga said as she and the Doctor walked back into the palace. “The boys especially love having you here.”

“Ah yes.” As they approached the central palace hall, the Doctor could hear high-spirited whoops punctuated by the loud clacks of wooden weapons hitting together. “They are quite the energetic pair.”

The two young princes of Asgard, Thor and Loki, were practicing swordplay under the close eye of the Captain of the Guard and Odin the All-Father himself. A human would judge the two boys to be about eleven and ten years old. Thor was the elder of the two, the crown prince. He was large for his age, strong and fair, much as Odin had been as a boy.

That had been a very long time ago by Asgard’s standards, and the Doctor had been a different man then.

Loki was quite different in appearance, dark and slim and wiry, though he looked like he’d grow quite tall whenever he got around to it. Where Thor was on the loud and gregarious side, Loki was quieter, always watching and weighing everything. 

The Doctor was quite fond of both of the young princes, but if he were prodded a little bit, he would admit that Loki was his favorite of the two. The Doctor saw a lot of his young self in the boy.

Odin spotted the arrival the Doctor and Frigga and strode over to meet them. 

“Doctor,” the All-Father said, “I take it all is well with you today?”

“I’d go so far as to say I’m spiffing, Your Majesty,” the Doctor replied. 

“Er. . .yes.” 

The Doctor liked Odin, really he did. But the All-Father could be rather imperious and kingly as a rule. It was a quality he came by honestly enough, but the Doctor couldn’t resist tweaking him with a bit of nonsense here and there.

Odin turned his attention to his wife.

“I’ve received word from General Aldric. There’s a matter at his garrison that requires my attention. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“Is that quite necessary?” Frigga asked. “We do have a guest.”

The Doctor stood quietly to the side, observing. Married people. It was like watching tennis. 

“I’ll only be gone one night,” Odin replied. “I’ll be taking Thor with me. It will be good for him to see.”

“And Loki,” Frigga said firmly. “You can’t take one and not the other.”

There was a particularly loud clatter that drew the grown-ups’ attention back to the two dueling boys. It looked like Thor was starting to get the better of his brother. But as they watched, the Doctor saw Loki narrow his eyes and, a moment later, Thor’s wooden sword seemed to burst into flame.

Thor dropped the sword (which showed not the slightest sign of charring) with a startled yelp. “Not fair!” he shouted, but at the same time he was laughing along with his brother. “No illusions during practice!”

The Doctor beamed, arms folded and chin tucked in to hide his expression a bit. His smile grew when Loki simply poked his brother with his own sword, said, “Got you!” then took off running with Thor giving chase.

Clever, that boy was. Clever and tricky.

Odin sighed and shook his head, exchanging a slight smile with his queen. But he was apparently not going to be moved on his decision. 

“Just Thor,” he said. “It’s his place as my heir.”

Frigga frowned quite unhappily at her husband, and if it weren’t for the presence of a guest, the Doctor thought she’d have several choice words to say to him. She might yet once she had him alone. For now the Doctor decided to put his foot into the tense silence.

“If I may,” he said, “I believe I can find something to keep Loki occupied while his brother is away.”

*****

“Where are we going?” Loki asked.

“I told you,” the Doctor replied, checking his knapsack and stuffing in a spare bow tie and a pair of socks. “We’re going exploring.”

It wasn’t long past dawn. Odin and Thor had departed an hour ago. Loki had rather clumsily tried to mask his disappointment at being left behind, but he had quickly brightened up with interest when the Doctor told him to get ready, that they were going on an adventure today.

“Yes, but _where?”_ Loki asked insistently.

The Doctor looked up from his preparations and grinned at the young prince. 

“That,” he said, reaching over and tapping the boy on the nose, “is a surprise. Now, are you all packed? Canteen? Knife? Compass? Lunch?”

“Yes.” Loki slung his own knapsack around onto his back. “I’m ready.”

“Good.” The Doctor looked up at the Queen, who had come to oversee the preparations. “I’ll have him home for dinner, Frigga.”

“I would tell you two to have a good time, but I don’t think you’re going to need any encouragement from me.” Frigga smiled, and when Loki moved ahead of them out of the palace, she laid a hand on the Doctor’s arm. “Thank you for doing this. It’s very kind of you.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Nothing of the sort. I love exploring. It’s always much more fun with company.”

Ordinarily, the Doctor preferred his own transport, but for this excursion one of the aerial longboats favored by the locals on Asgard seemed more the order of the day.

“We _could_ go exploring in your TARDIS,” Loki suggested as the Doctor steered the boat out of the city. 

The boy looked so hopeful in contrast to his attempt to sound casual that the Doctor had to smother a grin.

“We could,” he said. “And we may yet. But you know you don’t need a TARDIS to travel to other worlds. There are ways to do that right here on Asgard.”

“The Bifrost,” Loki said, nodding.

“Oh, not just the Bifrost. That’s the official way. Boring,” the Doctor said. He set the controls of the longboat to a pleasant cruising speed. “Asgard is one of the Nine Realms. Do you know what makes the Nine Realms the Nine Realms?”

“That there are nine of them?” Loki ventured. At the Doctor’s encouraging nod, he continued. “And they’re connected?”

“Right. Connected by what?”

“By the world tree, Yggdrasill.”

“Full marks,” the Doctor said, adjusting their course slightly, sailing their boat out over the long lake that snaked through low hills just beyond the city gates. “Well, of course, we know that Yggdrasill isn’t actually a tree. It would have to be a bloody big tree to stretch between nine worlds. What it is, literally, is a series of connections between the nine worlds.” 

The Doctor folded his arms on the control panel and looked down at Loki.

“And if you know how to find the places where the worlds connect,” he said, “you can walk from one to the other like you were crossing a street.”

It was fun to watch Loki go from trying to hide the fact that he was suffering through a tutorial on _Asgard’s Place in the Cosmos 101,_ to going wide-eyed in dawning excitement. 

“Are we going to other worlds? Really?”

“Ah, Loki,” the Doctor said. “We could hardly call ourselves proper explorers if we didn’t.”

*****

They parked the boat along the lake shore, continuing on foot. The Doctor carried the device that he’d built especially for this excursion.

“Short-cut detector,” the Doctor said, holding the contraption in front of him as he and Loki picked their way through a narrow cave along the shore. “You don’t necessarily _need_ one of these, of course, but it does speed up the process. Hidden paths tend to hide in _in-between_ sorts of places. Like a shore is between water and land, and a cave is between topside and the underworld. Once you know where to look and how to feel for them, you can find them on your own, no trouble. And. . .here we go.”

A green light had started flashing on the short-cut detector. The Doctor paused, pushing his free hand out in front of him. Loki watched curiously.

“You can feel it when you’re getting close to a spot between two of the worlds,” the Doctor said. “Go on. Try it.”

Loki cautiously extended one hand as well, and then quickly drew it back. The air seemed to ripple a tiny bit, like a pebble had been cast into standing water.

“It feels like. . .”

“Like pushing against a wall made of jelly,” the Doctor said. He stuffed the short-cut detector back in his knapsack and looked down at the prince. “Shall we?” he asked, tilting his head toward the path in front of them.

Loki grinned. “Yes.”

*****

“Lovely. Just lovely,” the Doctor said, looking up at the towering pine trees of Vanaheim.

He and Loki were on a road winding through a forest. A light snow sifted down through the branches. The Doctor bundled his tweed coat about him a bit more tightly.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s see where this road leads and hope there’s a hot cup of tea at the end of it.”

Vanaheim was a close cousin to Asgard and had cities to rival the one from which Odin and Frigga ruled their realm. The road through the forest, however, led to a middling-sized village. It was large enough to have a comfortable tavern that served tea that tasted like honey and smoke. It was midday, so the only other patrons, in the grand tradition of pubs all over the universe, consisted of a crowd of old men, warming their bones and swapping stories by the hearth.

The group included one impish old chap who had clearly had some schooling in one of the arts that passed for magic on more superstitious worlds. He kept teasing the barkeep by creating duplicate illusions of himself and scattering them around the room, waving for attention.

“I could learn to do that,” Loki said as he and the Doctor watched the fun.

“I have no doubt that you could,” the Doctor replied.

*****

Another pathway took them to Alfeim, the realm of the Light Elves. The Doctor and Loki emerged in a beautiful, perfectly circular meadow carpeted by soft, bluish-green grass. It was twilight, and three full moons hung in the sky over head.

As luck (bad or good depending on if one were to ask the Time Lord or the prince) would have it, a dozen elven priestesses were currently using the meadow to conduct a ritual dance in honor of the celestial event. They all stopped, turning to look at the interlopers with surprise.

“Oh, my.”

The Doctor quickly clapped one hand across Loki’s eyes. And not a moment too soon. They looked rather like they were about to bug right out of the boy’s skull.

“Ladies,” the Doctor said politely. “Pardon us. Lovely. . .” he waved his free hand, “pirouetting. We’re just passing through. Don’t mind us. Really, we’ll be out of your hair in a just moment.”

The Doctor pushed Loki along as he made his apologies. The boy was trying to shake off the Doctor’s hand.

“I want to _see,”_ he whispered.

“When you’re older,” the Doctor replied firmly, steering Loki around the pile of clothing ( _all_ their clothing, thank you) that the priestesses had left in an untidy heap at the edge of the meadow. “Let’s go find some nice something to look at.”

*****

“What’s this one?” Loki asked, as they looked around at a desolate landscape.

A dry wind blew across a series of endless hills of sandy black soil. Nothing grew here at all. It looked like nothing had flourished in this place since the dawn of time.

“Svartalfheim,” the Doctor said. “Not much to see here any more.”

“This is where the Dark Elves came from,” Loki said. “My grandfather destroyed them a long time ago, before Father was even born.”

“Yes.” The Doctor turned in a circle looking around at the dead world. 

At a far remote, more innocent time in his life, this place would have made him shudder. There were many cases where abandoned worlds were repurposed, colonized. Races died out or moved on, and someone else eventually moved in and built something new. That had not been the case with Svartalfheim. It was utterly empty.

“Come on,” the Doctor said. “We shouldn’t linger here.”

*****

They found almost a dozen paths before night started to set in. Loki found the last five all on his own without any hints from the Doctor or help from the short-cut detector.

“We’re going to have to hustle. I told your mother we’d be back for dinner,” the Doctor said as they picked their way down to the hillside to the spot where they’d parked the long boat.

“Can we go again?” Loki asked as he clambered over the side.

“Of course,” the Doctor replied, starting up the boat. “Now you know how to go about finding the paths. You can go anytime you like.” The Doctor steered the boat out over the lake, pointing it back toward the palace. “Just, if you go on your own,” he added, “be careful.”

The Doctor berthed the long boat at the same balcony at the palace where his TARDIS was parked. It wasn’t far off the huge dining hall, and the smell of roasted meat and the echo of dozens of merry voices drifted up the wide corridor to greet them.

“It sounds like they’ll be getting started soon,” the Doctor said.

“Yes.” Loki shouldered his knapsack again. The boy looked rumpled, grubby, and tired, and worlds happier than he had that morning. “I’m starving.”

“On that subject,” the Doctor said, “I thought we might grab a bite out.” When Loki frowned at him, the Doctor tilted his head at the TARDIS. “If you’re up for one more quick adventure.”

It took a second, but Loki’s eyes went wide with excitement as he realized what the Doctor was saying.

“Really?” he asked.

The Doctor had been poking at this idea all day and he’d come to a decision on the ride back to the palace. Loki had looked so hopeful when he’d hinted at a TARDIS ride that morning. Besides, there was something that the Doctor wanted him to see, but it required a short jaunt through Time as well as Space, not to mention a minor violation of Asgardian law.

“Really.” The Doctor unlocked the door of the TARDIS and pushed it open. He winked conspiratorially at Loki. “Come on. Don’t worry. We’ll be back before anyone even knows that we’re gone.”

*****

“This,” the Doctor said, “is one of my favorite worlds in all the universe.”

The sun was shining, birds were singing, and people were picnicking or playing games of football or Frisbee in the open areas. Here a family posed under a tree for photographs. There a group of runners jogged by, training for some big important jog, probably. Bicyclists and dog walkers and vendors selling ice cream and hotdogs and balloons teemed on the wide, paved trail.

“This is Midgard, isn’t it?” Loki said. 

The Doctor smiled. The boy didn’t seem to know what to look at first.

“Midgard, yes. Or, as it’s more commonly known, Earth. This is just a very small corner of it, though.” The Doctor handed Loki a hotdog from one of the carts. “This place is called Central Park. It’s the heart of the borough of Manhattan, which is just one part of the great city of New York, which is only one of the great cities on Earth. There are also London, Tokyo, Paris, Rome--”

“How many Midgardians _are_ there?” Loki asked.

“About seven billion,” the Doctor said. “I know, a fair few,” he added at Loki’s shocked expression. “But that’s quite common among species with such short life expectancies. Just wait until they start venturing out in to the universe. You won’t be able to swing a smallish cat without hitting a human being.”

They lingered in Central Park for a long time, working their way through seven or eight food carts as they wandered. It seemed like just as they’d get ready to head back to Asgard they’d spot something new to look at. It was only when the sun was hanging low over the park that they re-boarded the TARDIS for the short trip back.

Frigga was standing outside the door when they disembarked.

“Ah, Frigga! We were just stowing away the knapsacks,” the Doctor said smoothly. “Keeping everything shipshape. You know how it is.”

Frigga raised a slightly skeptical eyebrow, but didn’t call the Doctor out on his fib.

“Well, you both must be starving,” she said. “You’ve had a long day. We’re ready to begin dinner. Come along.”

She turned, leading the way back to the dining hall. Loki looked up at the Doctor. 

“I’m so full,” he said.

The Doctor nodded, patting him on the shoulder. “Just grit your teeth and bluff your way through. Drink lots of water.”

He was feeling a bit ill himself. They should have skipped the third ice cream.

Loki was quiet as they walked into the palace, and the Doctor didn’t think it was just that he was nursing a stomach ache. The boy was quiet by nature. He appeared to be thinking quite hard, which was also not uncharacteristic. The Doctor left him to it. There was nothing more annoying than being prodded with _What are you thinking abouts_ while you were trying to think.

After a few moments Loki looked up at the Doctor. 

“I should tell Thor about the paths, shouldn’t I?” he said. “I mean, he might want to go, too.”

“I’d say that’s entirely up to you,” the Doctor said after a brief hesitation.

He knew that what he was probably supposed to say was, _Yes, of course. No question. You should share with your brother._ But he didn’t say it.

If Loki chose to share the pathways with Thor, it was all well and good, of course. The Doctor knew how close the two boys were.

On the other hand, if Loki chose to keep the pathways to himself, that was fine, too. The Doctor remembered what it had been like to be a child who was always a bit out of step even with the people he held most dear. Having a secret or two to hold close had amounted to a certain type of freedom.

When he’d grown older, he’d found a way to seize that freedom more directly, stealing a TARDIS and running away to see the universe. There were no TARDISes on Asgard, but the pathways would always be there. And now Loki knew how to find them should he ever have need of them.

*****

_Date: May 2011_  
 _Location: New Mexico_

“I always meant to swing back by one day,” the Doctor said. “See how the boys were getting on. See if Loki ever went exploring on his own. But other things came up. I suppose I left it a bit too late.”

A time traveler should never be in the position of being too late, yet it seemed to happen with frustrating regularity.

He should have made more of an effort to get back and check on things. The Doctor had known that Loki had run the risk of being the overlooked son, particularly in his father’s eyes. The Doctor had had a good rapport with Loki. He’d understood the boy. Maybe if he’d gone back more often, he could have—

“Cut that out.”

The Doctor looked up at Coulson in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know that look.” Coulson looked like he might be amused if he weren’t so tired. “You’re holding yourself responsible, aren’t you? You’re probably thinking if you’d gone back and spent more time bonding with the kid you could have made him turn out differently.”

The Doctor could feel his inner reserves of indignation go from zero to a boiling point in just a hair under a second. Of course, he knew that that was only because Coulson had just read him like an advert on the Underground. 

“Well.” The Doctor managed to hold off just short of sputtering. “I suppose you think you’re quite clever, don’t you?”

Coulson shrugged. _Yes, on occasion,_ seemed to be the unspoken reply.

“Look,” Coulson said, “the way I see it, this guy had every opportunity except for one—the chance to be king. He chose to focus on the one thing he couldn’t have at the cost of everything else. It sounds like he had a brother who loved him. He had decent parents. Okay, maybe Odin needs some work. I’m not sure that kicking one of your kids off the planet is an example of great parenting, but the point is that the man was clearly invested in teaching his sons to do right.”

Coulson might be good at double-talk, a talent that benefited any good spy, but he could also turn around and be quite plain-spoken. The Doctor admired that quality much more when it wasn’t being directed at him.

“You could have gone back to Asgard. You could have been there at every defining moment, and Loki still could have grown up to do bad things.” Coulson shook his head, relieved the Doctor of his plate of mangled cake, and stood up. “I like you, Doctor, but sometimes you need to get over the idea that people’s lives revolve around what you did or didn’t do.”

“I’m sorry, is this speech meant to be comforting?” the Doctor asked.

He didn’t really need to ask, because it was comforting, at least a little. Funny how being knocked down a peg or five could have that effect.

“It’s just meant to provide some perspective,” Coulson said. His tone stopped short of full-on sympathy, but the Doctor recognized the kindness in it all the same. “You’re not responsible for what Loki turned into, and it’s not your fault that he’s dead. So, stop kicking yourself.”

Coulson walked away to toss the plates into the rubbish bin and, presumably, to go and see what River and Clint and Amy and Rory were getting up to. The Doctor remained seated for a few minutes, turning Coulson’s words over until he found that his dark cloud had lightened a bit.

Well, it was good enough to be getting along with. Shaking his head with a slight smile, the Doctor got up and went to find his friends.


End file.
